Affair in Trinidad

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.Rita Hayworth had been absent from the screen for a few years when she made this film, but as the camera proves, although a bit older, she hadn't lost her on-screen magic.This film isn't technically a "sequel" to the noir classic "Gilda", but it has many of the same elements. Rita (still with her famous Gilda hairstyle) again stars opposite Glenn Ford, who slaps Rita across the face just as he did in "Gilda"; Rita sings and dances (ala Gilda) in a couple of musical numbers wherein the voice is dubbed by the same singer who sang for her in "Gilda"...The plot is contrived, and nowhere near as interesting as "Gilda", but it still makes for an interesting film, especially if you enjoyed "Gilda" and want to see more of the sultry Rita Hayworth making onscreen magic with her most effective co-star, Glenn Ford.For fans of Hayworth, it's worth seeing for the musical numbers alone.Lovely Rita... this film bears watching just to see her beautiful face light up the screen!

"Gilda" is a great nasty film noir, in which Glenn Ford isn't quite man enough to take on Rita Hayworth, and she keeps flaunting it in his face. Will he step up to the plate... or burst into tears? If you're a fan of that movie hoping for more of their unique sado-masochistic chemistry, forget it. "Affair in Trinidad" is a third-rate knockoff of Notorious, but director Vincent Sherman is no Charles Vidor. In fact, he's nobody. The stars don't make fools of themselves as they did in their ludicrous "Carmen," but duller isn't necessarily better. She throws her hair around energetically, but years of hard living had taken their toll, and you know Hayworth is in trouble when you find yourself wondering if she's wearing a wig. "Gilda" was Ford's finest hour, maybe because his usual scowling tough guy act was framed up as a paper-thin cover for sexual ambiguity. Here, he looks like he can barely keep himself from stomping off the set in disgust. You're luckier than he was: you have a remote.

On the orders of Columbia studio head Harry Cohn, Rita Hayworth was transformed from a latin B player to an A picture love goddess, her high spirits passing as all-American in titles like Cover Girl and Gilda. However the curse of the beautiful is that they become possessions by collectors, just as Rita told screenwriter of Gilda, Virginia Van Upp - men fell in love with Gilda but woke up with me. Her greatest collector was Prince Aly Khan, and the idea of capturing a movie star predated Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier in the 1950's. However the Hayworth/Khan marriage failed and Rita returned to Hollywood. Perhaps in a depression, unhappy with the vehicle provided for her comeback role, or simply older, Hayworth's sparkle had dimmed. That's not to say that she doesn't look beautiful in the film. Whilst not lit as gorgeously as she was by Rudolph Mate in Gilda, she has a moment here standing in repose in shadow, smoking. But even with her character being a recent widow, her voice is dead and she carries herself like a somnambulist. She is best when she is dancing as she does twice here. In the first, Trinidad Lady, is the Carmen Rita - barefoot and tossing her dress. The framing distances us - director Vincent Sherman may be more interested in the crowd around the stage, but she looks happy performing. The second, I've Been Kissed Before, has obvious parallels to her Put The Blame on Mame from Gilda. She wears a shimmery black dress as fetishistic as the famous black satin sheath, the number is schematically arranged to present her as a tramp to later be rewarded with a face slap, even the choreography recalls that of Mame. However her announced intention to dance, even if contextualised, is a dramatic change of characterisation.Read more ›

The thriller plot with a beautiful woman under-cover and unable to respond to maligning suspicions seems to me to owe much to Hitchcock's sublime "Notorious." (The original murder mystery of the plot is never solved. Hitchcock would not have left that hanging.)

The noirish cinematography is excellent, though the editing cannot compare with that in "Notorious" (or "Gilda"). I find Glenn Ford's sanctimonious hard to take (here as elsewhere).

Primarily, however, this was a vehicle for the return of screenn goddess Rita Hayworth in 1952, after the collapse of her marriage to Ali Khan ended her early retirement. There is a sadness underlying many of Rita Hayworth's sultry performances (as in "Gilda").

She could most certainly dance! No one at the time credited her with being able to act, but she could do that, too. She was so mesmerizingly beautiful that she just had to be vapid, everyone seems to have thought. 34 years old when she made this film, she looked absolutely ravishing.

The film's costume design won an Academy Award, but in the (deservedly) best-remembered scene, she danced barefoot.